Status of Women Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2015

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you.

Rosemary, you mentioned that you've had some substantial funding since 2007 and that 720 community programs have been funded. That's something you want to celebrate, but you mentioned that we need to take a cohesive approach to some of these best practices, some of these programs that are working. Can you expand on that? How do you see that and what do you mean by that? Do we need to take some of these successful programs in communities and make more of a national cohesive unit? Can you expand on that a bit?

[Rosemary McCarney]

Yes, I think what's fundamentally important is that this has to be multi-sectoral, as we've all said. It is about the justice system. Reforms are needed. Better training of the judiciary, for example, is a piece. Legal aid access is another piece. Jane has mentioned a number of them. I'm a lawyer by training so I can wear both hats on that.

We need to address the health care system as well so there is access and understanding about the reproductive health of young adolescents, which is abysmal.

Frankly, there is the education sector that we've talked about, and the important role the school boards play in making sure that the curriculum doesn't just talk about rights, but talks about responsibilities as well, that talks about the importance of young people standing up and taking action and not condoning and not being complicit.

It's about the policing systems that need to be done in a way that will provide confidence and comfort so women and young girls will come forth.

It's about funding the front-line health care people and the front-line social service agencies.

It's a spectrum, and you have a massive job in front of you, there is no question. This is multi-jurisdictional and it's multi-sectoral and it has to go from prevention to accountability and on to provision of services and behavioural change running straight across it. It is all of those things.

If you want to dig in, there are a couple of places in which we need specific help. Jane has mentioned some. Todd has mentioned one. One that's not talked about is that we need good data. This has to be done on a solid empirical foundation that's not for debate. That means funding Stats Canada to be able to get disaggregated data, because we don't have good disaggregated data to inform smart investments and policy choices.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Ms. McCarney.

Please finish.

[Rosemary McCarney]

I'll add one last one. When the dentistry students thing began, I took a deep breath and asked why the hate laws of Canada weren't being applied here. One of my colleagues said that they didn't apply to gender. When we created the hate laws 25 years ago as a carve-out from freedom of expression and the limits of free speech, we didn't put gender in them. It's another specific piece that I hope this committee will look at as well.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

That's fascinating. I couldn't stop you because you were giving us food for thought and food to put in the report, not on the table.

Ms. Bateman, you may go ahead for five minutes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank every one of you for the perspective and your testimony today. It will be immensely helpful to us all, and certainly to the committee going forward.

Every one of you has mentioned resources and money, so I want to touch briefly on that. I recognize the importance. I'm a chartered accountant from way back, so I want to get an understanding at the start of my question period.

Rosemary, the research I have on your organization—and you very modestly said we've got to start—my goodness, you have an international organization. You have 8,200 staff. You have 60,000 well-trained volunteers who help you connect. You're making a huge impact. I'm thrilled that DFATD, as well as Status of Women, is a big player. Obviously, the nature of the work you're doing is congruent with how proud we are as a country to make a difference in the world.

You mentioned your individual donors. You mentioned DFATD and Status of Women. If you were cutting a pie—we don't have to be precise—would you get about one-third or half of your resources from DFATD, or is it 99% of your resources from individuals? I'm just curious.

[Rosemary McCarney]

Because I have a financial side to my head as well as a legal one, from the Canadian resources, DFATD, and I would add Status of Women as well, but DFATD is the largest piece, it bounces a little, but it represents under 15% of our total revenue every year. About 12% to 13% of total revenue is DFATD.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Wow. That's great. You have a presence in the world, in so many communities, in so many....

Anyway, in terms of levering the resources that you have, because they are mammoth and impressive, how do you share the information? You have 8,200 employees. How do you share? How do you make sure that the best practices within your organization are shared? How do you nurture the volunteers? I'd love to hear about that.

[Rosemary McCarney]

We work in about 103,000 communities within those countries. We're very much a community-based organization. Each of those countries has a strategic plan, a country strategic plan that is in formation over a couple of years of massive consultation with those tens of thousands of communities and millions of people in those countries, as well as the ministries of education and health and status of women in a country, like, from Zimbabwe to Laos. Those strategic plans are formed very much from the bottom up, and the prioritization and the context is set from those. That's the way we do that. Then a budget is attached to that and they pass that up to the global leadership. That's how we target how we mobilize resources, whether it's a British donor or a Canadian donor, whether they have particular interests in their strategic philanthropy being in this part of the world, in this area of water sanitation, or girls' rights, or....

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

How do you cross-fertilize?

[Rosemary McCarney]

The cross-fertilization is both through the strategic plans and then through third party evaluations and assessments of the work done, which is all public information and knowledge. We also have what's called the Plan Academy, where that work comes together with trained educators who bring the best practices, bring the assessments and evaluations, say, from a response in Haiti, or on a particular issue, for example, on the humanitarian side. That's shared in the same way a multinational corporation would in terms of online curriculum across all of those things.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thanks so much. Time is always short.

I want to follow up on your comments. I just loved that that little boy wanted to be a mom. I think that's a beautiful story. In our family, I happen to be married to a very gentle man and....

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Briefly, Mrs. Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Okay.

To me that has been the big beneficiary for our children.

Your comments about the industry and how children...that little boy said he can't see nurturing from parents. Have you considered lobbying the entertainment industry? Have you considered, I mean, my goodness—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Mrs. Bateman, your question, please.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I just gave it.

Have you considered lobbying the entertainment industry?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Very well. Thank you very much.

Your answer, briefly.

[Todd Minerson]

We call that group our nine-year-old experts and then we go to our 11-year-old experts for the really tough questions like this. We've asked them that question, where do these things come from. Not only do they come from family and schools, but they come from the media, an important place, and they come from sports and culture, and all of those things. There's a vast web of things that contribute to these notions that are instilled in these nine- and 11-year-old boys. There's not one place to go. We could spend our entire life against sexist ads and things like that, but that's not showing men the right way to do things. It's focused on the fight, not the solution.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Ms. Duncan, over to you for five minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you all for coming. We're enormously grateful to all of you in the work you do.

Ms. McCarney, you were talking about good data. Could you outline what the challenges are in the data as you see them, and what specific recommendations you would like to see in the committee's report?

[Rosemary McCarney]

We're big believers that good policy formation happens on an empirical basis. The reality is that we have not desegregated data over time. It is not just Canada; it is around the world. But if we're going to do good policy formation out of the recommendations of this committee, we actually have to fund good data collection, desegregated data, not just by gender but by age and gender. Todd has brought that very much home in terms of both the quantitative as well as the qualitative. When Jane cites statistics that only 10% of reported cases, for example, go through the evidentiary gathering of a rape kit, or only 1% of something else, one of the data pieces that I use, and I use it to make a point, is that one in four girls reports being sexually assaulted before her 16th birthday in this country.

That data is about 17 years old, because we haven't collected this data in that long. Do I think the situation has improved? I'm not sure, but I want to be able to answer those questions on a foundation of solid evidence to be able to know where the right place to put the investment is.

When Mr. Barlow said all of these different projects—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

There is a lot of noise.

Thank you.

[Rosemary McCarney]

There are so many of these projects across the country, and it is a patchwork of holes across the country. There are some amazing things happening in certain provinces and in certain school boards. Toronto District School Board is doing some very good work. But we don't know any of this because it's not being collated. We don't know what's really happening in the lives of girls and boys across this country so that it can shape our policy and make sure we are putting the right money in the right places to get the biggest return on investment.

Statistics Canada needs to be empowered and funded in a way, and directed to get this evidence that we need to support the legislative and policy changes that are required. It has to be both quantitative as well as qualitative data, because qualitative data with young people can be actually more reliable than quantitative data, but can be more expensive to collect.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

If there's a specific recommendation to the committee, what is it? You've talked about good collection of data. Do you want to expand on that?

[Rosemary McCarney]

Sure. It would be to provide sufficient support to Statistics Canada to collect and consolidate desegrated national data, so that we can be informed on an evidence basis on the information for policy initiatives that we are going to be taking.